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Interior designer Jillian Harris can't resist at least one design tip casting back to her days as the star of TV's The Bachelorette. She advises a personal approach to finding pieces worth restoring.

"When you are looking for a salvage piece, it's much like trying to find a guy in a bar or a club," says the 31-year-old. "You'll just be attracted to him, and you'll know - you'll know. You'll also know if he's shady or if he's a good, solid guy. I think it's the same thing with a piece (of furniture)."

Harris is headlining the 2011 Calgary Home + Design Show, Sept. 22 to 25 at BMO Centre. She will be on the Design Stage, hosted by HGTV, presenting ideas and examples of how homeowners can transform their space while bringing out their personality. Harris is a design expert on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and host of HGTV's new series Canada's Handyman Challenge, slated to run in January and February.

What Harris recognizes, and what makes her designs so strong, is that an old chest, painting or chair are more than just functional objects. They tie us to our memories.

"I'm attracted to pieces because of the warm fuzzies they give me inside. I'm really connected to my past and I love things that bring me happy memories," she says.

Harris surveys her small Vancouver condo for examples. A Moroccan-style stool with a herringbone, flamestitch effect reminds her of her first trips to Mexico. A stunning sketch

of a bull she bought from a Spanish street vendor while on her way to a date with Kiptyn Locke on The Bachelorette is a piece rich in memories.

Framed and matted in black for $100, it now looks like a $5,000 gallery piece.

Harris, who grew up Peace River and lived in Calgary, says we need to be brave enough to recognize who we are to make our spaces personal. And it doesn't have to cost a lot to make something look high style.

Start by judging how much effort and money a piece may take to restore.

"When you're salvaging, your piece has to have good bones," Harris says.

"If a leg is falling off, or the back is falling off, typically it's not worth the money to try to fix it. You may be able to find a different purpose for it, though."

She mentions a 1930s Louis-style cane-back chair she owns. She bartered the price for the battered and worn brown upholstered chair down to $25.

"My mom and my cousin and my aunt, who are all professional salvagers, walked right by it without batting an eye. I immediately had a vision for it." Her father helped her spray paint the frame white and

she had the seat reupholstered in a luxurious chartreuse Schumacher fabric for about $1,000. It reminds her of her grandparents.

Whether Harris is salvaging for herself or for clients, she searches for the inner beauty of a piece.

"I really do appreciate fine antiques, but what I really love is searching for something that looks like it's on the way to the dump and making it look beautiful."

Is it worth it?

Jillian Harris shares her tips for choosing decor items to restore.

- Is it worth salvaging?

Do you have the budget to do what needs to be done? Ripped fabric can be cheap to replace; refoaming and repadding a couch is expensive.

Hardware, such as knobs or hinges for a dresser or an armoire, is easily replaced.

Pass on wobbly structure, unless you are going to repurpose the piece, such as replacing a dresser's broken drawers with baskets or using drawers from a broken chest as storage units.

"If there's a reason you love it, think about what else you could do with it," Harris says.

- Knobs and other hardware

Harris's favourite source for hardware is Anthropologie.

"They have the most stunning knobs, but they are not cheap," she says. "I did a dresser last spring in Chicago that was featured on oprah.com. I did the desk for $20 and bought it for $50." But the hardware rang in at $150.

She suggests using expensive hardware on pieces you have professionally refinished. For more reasonably priced hardware, Harris turns to Target, which is opening stores in Canada and Calgary in 2013.

Sometimes it's just the details that make a piece pop. By changing out the wooden knobs to crystal knobs from Home Depot, Harris transformed an IKEA chest of drawers into a restoration hardwood piece.

You can also salvage hardware, though it's harder to find matching sets or pieces.

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